Finding My Religion #7: 10 New Songs Curated by the Priest - "Lo-Infidelity"

DIY is our way of life at Pickled Priest, so naturally we reward bands that tap into that aesthetic. Low budget is our defining principle. Doing it live is our secret sauce. Analog, straight to tape, vintage equipment, you name it, we're in love with it. And if you're going to force us to watch a video make it grainy black & white. As we travel the globe with stops in Australia, Sweden, England, and Arkansas, we search for the real deal wherever we go.

This mix has a few such bands. And a bunch of other random shit. Enjoy.

SIDE A

01 "Hard to Be Moved" | Eddy Current Suppression Ring

An Australian surprise from the great Eddy Current Suppression Ring and I didn't even see it coming. Not a word was spoken. A couple random YouTube singles to pass the time, yes, but that's all. Apparently, these minimalist punks holed up in a basement for parts of last year and banged this one out and it's more of what they do best. Brendan Huntley's adenoidal snarl delivers lyrics with a late-70s punk edge, part Dave Thomas (Pere Ubu), a little Mark E. Smith (the Fall), a dose of Sam Windett (Archie Bronson Outfit), and just a whiff of, do I even say it, Bon Scott. Dan and Mike Young (aka Danny and Eddy Current) handle the drums and guitars with Brad Berry on bass. It's all very raw, just the way Aussie punk is supposed to be. One of Pickled Priest's favorite bands of this century and they're right under all of our noses hiding in plain sight. The new record is titled In Light of Recent Events and it's another gem in their catalog. These guys don't put out bad records. They have too much pride for that.

02 "Invisible Ink" | King Tuff

God, I love DIY rock bands that just bash it out on the cheap. Kyle Thomas, aka King Tuff, gives us a no frills rock record with this year's Moo, complete with the obligatory low budget black & white video to seal their cred up tight. I popped this on my headphones while I was mowing the lawn last week and between the front and back yards I scurried inside to snag the record off of Bandcamp so I wouldn't forget. "Invisible Ink" is one of those single analogy songs that has just the right amount of hook that even a common man like me can adopt and pull off behind the steering wheel without looking like a chump. I rarely say this, but check out the video, too. Bassist sports a McCartney-esque Hoffner and the drummer, reduced to a single snare, makes no attempt to actually hit the damn thing. Kyle, as always, holds it all down on guitar and vox. I love a band with a sense of humor that doesn't forget to write real rock and roll songs. Our favorite combination.

03 "The Weak" | Iceage

For Love of Grace & the Hereafter is the album I didn't know I was waiting for from Iceage, a Danish band that never seems to stay in one musical place for long. You never know what you're gonna get with these guys, but this time they cater to my personal wheelhouse. They sound like a real fucking rock band now, a decade-and-a-half removed from the clanging, cacophonous, borderline industrial New Brigade and You're Nothing (2011 and 2013 respectively). They lost me a little after that, but now they've found me again, for a rock and roll record is born, with just the right amount of controlled recklessness—one of my favorite qualities—in evidence. There's a spirit to these songs missing from previous records and "The Weak" is the logical entry point. It sounds like a new alt-rock classic and a sure-thing Top 25 song of the year candidate.

04 "Walk Away (Don't Look Back)" | Social Distortion

There's a run-down graveyard on the edge of town

And people say it's where the truth is found

And in this place of the resting dead

On a lonely grave, this is what it read

Walk away, and don't look back

I've seen Social D a number of times over the last 40 years with some classic shows along the way, but last year I caught them in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of all places, and they seemed positively revitalized. They ripped through the first two singles from their first album in forever, Born to Kill—the title-track and "No Way Out"—and they promised a new record soon much to the delight of the crowd. Well, it's finally here and it's classic Mike Ness, straight-no-chaser, just like he's always been. A real rocker, a real punk, a real outlaw with a don't-give-a-fuck, 'tell it like it is' attitude. He hasn't changed a bit, thankfully. So don't expect many surprises is what I'm saying, with the exception of a damn fine cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game." A real curveball that works thanks to the requisite Nessian snarl. "Walk Away (Don't Look Back)" follows it on the track list, almost as if Ness decided to write his own version of the song, complete with lyrics that directly allude to Isaak's monster hit from 1989, "Aren't you sick and tired of the games you play?" For a song that claims not to look back, he seems to be doing exactly that.

05 "Competitive Bastard" | Kelley Stoltz

From the convoluted mind of Kelley Stoltz comes the amusingly self-aware "Competitive Bastard," but I'm not entirely sure whether it's autobiographical or observational. I'm leaning toward the latter. Either way, it kind of sounds like a Ween song with someone playing Tetris in the background. What more could you possibly ask for? From his new album with the groan-worthy title, If You Don't Know Me, Buy Now. Yes, too clever by half, but that doesn't make the song any less of an amusing oddity. The perfect way to end side one is with a sideways glance.

SIDE B

06 "Phyllis Diller (Original Version)" | Paul Nice & Phill Most Chill

The pure, old-school joy of 2025 was Phill Most Chill's album, Deal With It (with DJ Djar One), which soared all the way to #4 of our Year-End Top 50 Albums list. I couldn't get enough of PMC's well-crafted flow and Djar's retro-styled beats. It took me right back to the golden age of hip hop. Or at least back to 2015, when Phill and DJ/beatmaker Paul Nice hooked up as the Fabreeze Brothers for a now-collectable self-titled album. They recently dropped a cassette full of tracks left over from those sessions (The Fabreeze Brothers: The Bonus Tape), including the original version of "Phyllis Diller," included above. It's not everyday a cassette collection of leftovers is an essential part of an album's story, especially ten years after the fact, which only demonstrates why Mr. Chill is clearly one of the most undervalued MCs in recent history (and RIP to Paul Nice, who didn't live long enough to see this release). Aside from the unlikely reference to groundbreaking cackling comedienne and Hollywood Squares mainstay, Phyllis Diller (Chill's range knows no bounds), there's flow to burn on the track, with Phill rattling off one quotable line after the next. I honestly don't know how he comes up with this shit day in and day out. A true master.

07 "Arkansas Mud" | Ashley McBryde

Ashley's a wild-eyed, Southern rock-schooled, country girl from Arkansas so she doesn't need to pull off the persona—she lives it every day. "Arkansas Mud," surely now in contention for the Natural State's new official anthem, packs some serious arena-rock punch and might sound like routine country rock if not for McBryde's swagger. The girl has presence, that's for certain. It's hard not to get all cowboyed or cowgirled up when she rips into one of the many bangers on her appropriately-titled new record, Wild. Let's go out and kick some ass! If that's a bit more than you can handle or you're not the mechanical bull type, she also writes two really great songs about the bottle and the damage done that almost had me dropping a tear in my beer by the end ("Bottle Tells Me So" and "Behind Bars").

08 "2 or 3" | The Lemon Twigs

If you're a crate digger specializing in rare psychedelic 45s on obscure labels from the late-60s, you'd practically shit your pants if you found one as good as the Lemon Twigs new single "2 or 3", from their new record, Look for Your Mind!, an album title that virtually screams for a tab of acid to be included alongside its download code. I'm not even a fan of the band–just never got over the hump fully–but I do love this drippy little pop song with the sensational chorus, She has had two or three as many lives as me. Local boy loves worldly girl–can it possibly work? This is the stuff that makes those hours on your knees picking through hundreds of moldy, water-stained, bottom-rack singles worth the effort. Except this time, no digging needed.

09 "Leave It in the Past" | The Coral

Have the Coral always been good? Discuss. I haven't been tuned in consistently enough to answer, but I do know that I've always found a little something in each of their albums that I wished they'd do more of but don't. A perplexing phenomenon. I have held out hope for a long time, too, I mean these guys have been trying too hard for over twenty years now. That said, they've finally delivered a record that I really love front to back. And why is that, you ask? Because they stripped things down to pay tribute to some of their early stylistic influences (reggae, dub, Northern soul, etc.) and then they cut the songs live in a couple takes. No muss, no fuss. The result is a loose, low-key, blood pressure-friendly record that works best when the day's pace finally settles down a bit–when you have a chance to stretch your toes and breath the fresh summer air. It's all good, but I love the message of "Leave It in the Past" which rides on a slinky reggae groove while it calms the soul. Also check out the sweet harmonies of "You and Me (And the Beautiful Sea)" another feel-good gem among many. If these two songs don't sell you–and they absolutely should–then move on. We don't need you around here harshing our vibe anyway.

10 "This is Our Life" | Nina Winder-Lind

Swede Nina Winder-Lind currently lives in Brighton, England, where her day job is singing in the all-female folk-punk band the New Eves. You heard right. It's an acquired taste, that I'll tell you. "This is Our Life" is her first solo single and it sounds nothing like that band. In fact, the opposite is true. The song celebrates the struggles and rewards of living a creative life and based on the exuberance of the track, the upsides clearly outweigh the downsides. It was recorded at her family's cabin in the north of Sweden, but the joyous bounce of the track makes it clear this is no Bon Iver-esque, dark night of the soul creation. There's an endearing, quirky innocence built in that has all the makings of a potential sleeper hit if and when it travels down about forty degrees of latitude or so.

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Ten great songs at a time. There's no downside to that.

Cheers,

The Priest